How a Farmer’s Son From Remote Maharashtra Went on to Top the Prestigious IIITB

Coming from an agrarian background, the IIITB topper has come a long way, tackling a lot of obstacles towards achieving what he has received today.

From humble beginnings come great things, and the story of a man from a remote village in Maharashtra chasing success is a perfect example of that.

Mahendra Bhagavan Garodi has secured the M. Visvesvaraya Scholarship from International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIITB), with a CPGA of 3.91 in M. Tech (IT), making his name etched forever on the scroll of honour at one of the top institutes in India.

“The right amount of exposure at the right time is what helped me get into a profession which matches my talent,” Mahendra told Deccan Chronicle.

Attributing all of his successes to his parents, who are farmers from Walsawangi village in Jalna district, the young topper spoke of how things changed forever once he left the village for education.

“They decided to send me to Aurangabad for higher secondary and degree education amid financial challenges, and it was indeed life-changing. It is only then that I started realising the scope of the world outside of what I had seen till then,” he said.

Before joining IIITB for pursuing his Masters, Mahendra had worked for two years following the completion of his undergraduate studies at the Government College of Engineering in Aurangabad.

The road to the top hadn’t been free of hurdles. “The shift from Marathi medium to English was as challenging as it was to leave back the village to stay at a cosmopolitan city like Bengaluru,” he remembered.

Mahendra thinks of his life at the campus of IIITB as being in the realm of learning from every interaction that he had been part of.

“With a strong and productive crowd as seniors, juniors and batchmates, and down-to-earth dedicated faculty members, everything that was taught was helpful. The diversity among students informed me about different cultures, exposing me to a totally expanded view of the outer world”, he said.

Finding time to visit his school in his village once in a while, where he holds career-guidance and personality-development sessions for youngsters, the 25-year old engineer often shares his experiences as a member of a new environment that he is now part of with the little ones.

“We have to realise that an individual can never be perfect in everything he/she pursues. Avoid comparisons, focus on one goal and keep working patiently for results which would come to us gradually,” Mahendra added.

Already placed in an IT firm, the driven young man has been delegated the work of handling embedded system modelling for the company.

Shuttling between existentialist views and Grey's Anatomy, Lekshmi has an insanely disturbing habit of binge reading. An ardent lover of animals and plants, she also specializes in cracking terribly sad jokes.